The Yellow Birds: A Novel
Kevin Powers
Sep 2012 · Sceptre · Narrated by Holter Graham
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5 hr 20 min
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WINNER OF THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2012
WINNER OF THE HEMINGWAY/PEN AWARD 2012
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
AN AMAZON EDITOR'S PICK: BEST BOOKS OF 2012
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR
A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEAR
A SUNDAY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
A SUNDAY HERALD BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
An unforgettable depiction of the psychological impact of war, by a young Iraq veteran and poet, THE YELLOW BIRDS is already being hailed as a modern classic.
Everywhere John looks, he sees Murph.
He flinches when cars drive past. His fingers clasp around the rifle he hasn't held for months. Wide-eyed strangers praise him as a hero, but he can feel himself disappearing.
Back home after a year in Iraq, memories swarm around him: bodies burning in the crisp morning air. Sunlight falling through branches; bullets kicking up dust; ripples on a pond wavering like plucked strings. The promise he made, to a young man's mother, that her son would be brought home safely.
With THE YELLOW BIRDS, poet and veteran Kevin Powers has composed an unforgettable account of friendship and loss. It vividly captures the desperation and brutality of war, and its terrible after-effects. But it is also a story of love, of great courage, and of extraordinary human survival.
Written with profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on families at home, THE YELLOW BIRDS is one of the most haunting, true and powerful novels of our time.
'THE YELLOW BIRDS is the All Quiet on the Western Front of America's Arab Wars.'
(Tom Wolfe, author of The Bonfire of the Vanities )
'Kevin Powers has conjured a poetic and devastating account of war's effect on the individual.'
(Damian Lewis, star of Homeland and Band of Brothers )
'Inexplicably beautiful'.
(Ann Patchett, Orange Prize-winning author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder)
(P)2012 Hachette Audio
WINNER OF THE HEMINGWAY/PEN AWARD 2012
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
AN AMAZON EDITOR'S PICK: BEST BOOKS OF 2012
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR
A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEAR
A SUNDAY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
A SUNDAY HERALD BOOK OF THE YEAR
AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
An unforgettable depiction of the psychological impact of war, by a young Iraq veteran and poet, THE YELLOW BIRDS is already being hailed as a modern classic.
Everywhere John looks, he sees Murph.
He flinches when cars drive past. His fingers clasp around the rifle he hasn't held for months. Wide-eyed strangers praise him as a hero, but he can feel himself disappearing.
Back home after a year in Iraq, memories swarm around him: bodies burning in the crisp morning air. Sunlight falling through branches; bullets kicking up dust; ripples on a pond wavering like plucked strings. The promise he made, to a young man's mother, that her son would be brought home safely.
With THE YELLOW BIRDS, poet and veteran Kevin Powers has composed an unforgettable account of friendship and loss. It vividly captures the desperation and brutality of war, and its terrible after-effects. But it is also a story of love, of great courage, and of extraordinary human survival.
Written with profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on families at home, THE YELLOW BIRDS is one of the most haunting, true and powerful novels of our time.
'THE YELLOW BIRDS is the All Quiet on the Western Front of America's Arab Wars.'
(Tom Wolfe, author of The Bonfire of the Vanities )
'Kevin Powers has conjured a poetic and devastating account of war's effect on the individual.'
(Damian Lewis, star of Homeland and Band of Brothers )
'Inexplicably beautiful'.
(Ann Patchett, Orange Prize-winning author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder)
(P)2012 Hachette Audio
About the author
Kevin Powers' first novel, The Yellow Birds, won the Guardian First Book Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and was a National Book Award Finalist. His poetry collection, Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and Forward Prize. His second novel, A Shout in the Ruins, was published in 2018. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University and holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Michener Fellow in Poetry. He served in the US Army in 2004 and 2005 in Mosul and Tal Afar, Iraq.
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